So near and not so far : the Minaret and the Spire

Abstract

Some nine years ago I took to bed with the usual seasonal flu. Notwithstanding that it can be exasperatingly uncomfortable, in moments like these, I try to catch up with my favourite readings: history. Staring me in the face, from one of the top shelves in front of me... a book, with an unusually yellow cover: The Life of Mohammed by Muhammad Huseyn Haykal. His first name is that of the Prophet, his second Husain, Mohammed’s martyred nephew at Karbala, in present day Iraq. Might as well try reading it. And I did. Not only did I manage to go through the whole six hundred pages, but once started, I could not lay the book down. I got intellectually and in a wide sense, spiritually involved. Since then, an unceasing interest in the subject gripped me.